Hosea 2:2-13

Israel's Adultery Rebuked

2 Rebuke your mother; rebuke [her]. For she is not My wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face and her adultery from between her breasts.

3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her as she was on the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and like a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.

4 I will have no compassion on her children because they are the children of promiscuity.

5 For their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought: I will go after my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.

6 Therefore, this is what I will do: I will block her^[a] way with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so that she cannot find her paths.

7 She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find [them]. Then she will think: I will go back to my former husband, for then it was better for me than now.

8 She does not recognize that it is I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil. I lavished silver and gold on her, which they used for Baal.

9 Therefore, I will take back My grain in its time and My new wine in its season; I will take away My wool and linen, which were to cover her nakedness.

10 Now I will expose her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from My hands.

11 I will put an end to all her celebrations: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths- all her festivals.

12 I will devastate her vines and fig trees. She thinks that these are her wages that her lovers have given her. I will turn them into a thicket, and the wild animals will eat them.

13 And I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she burned incense to them, put on her rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but forgot Me. [This is]*The bracketed text has been added for clarity. the Lord's declaration.

Hosea 2:2-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 2

This chapter is an explanation of the former, proceeding upon the same argument in more express words. The godly Israelites are here called upon to lay before the body of the people their idolatry, ingratitude, obstinacy, and ignorance of the God of their mercies; and to exhort them to repentance, lest they should be stripped of all their good things, and be brought into great distress and difficulties; all their joy and comfort cease, and be exposed to shame and contempt, Ho 2:1-13, yet, notwithstanding, many gracious promises are made unto them, of their having the alluring and comfortable word of the Gospel; of a door of hope; of salvation being opened to them; of faith in the Lord, and affection to him as their husband; of the removal of all idolatry from them; of safety from all enemies; of their open espousal to Christ; of his hearing of their prayers, and giving them plenty of all good things; and of their multiplication, conversion, and covenant relation to God, Ho 2:14-23.

Footnotes

• [a]. LXX, Syr; MT reads your